Stewth: A poll has thanked Hugh Jackman for making Australian among the most attractive accents. Photo / James Devaney; GC Images
Stewth: A poll has thanked Hugh Jackman for making Australian among the most attractive accents. Photo / James Devaney; GC Images
“G’day, indeed!”
A recent survey of the most attractive accents has found that America can’t help but fall for a thick bush brogue from the land Down Under.
The poll of 1000 Americans was conducted by HighlandsTitles.com in an effort to find the speakers that make them go weak at the knees.
It turns out Australian was the most appealing accent for English speakers in the US, taking the top spot for most attractive male and female accents. Strewth!
Americans found that speaking with a New Yorker patois or thick Boston accent can hamper your dating prospects, as the first and second ‘least attractive accents.’
But hush, hush! Don’t protest too much! There can be benefits to being an Aussie in the Big Apple.
Margot Robbie stars in Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie. Photo / Warner Bros. Pictures
Australian accent was followed by Scots English, then the “London” Accent, Irish, French, Italian, Welsh and finally “Brummie” or English Midlands. This was in no small part to Cilian Murphy’s adaptation of the little heard accent in the hit TV series Peaky blinders.
The Birmingham - Black Country brogue was found to be the fourth most attractive accent for men.
Cillian Murphy (Tommy Shelby) in Peaky Blinders.
The Gallic charm of an aspirated French voice also scored highly, with respondents raking Franglais as top for the “most beautiful”, “most romantic” and “most seductive” accent.
Australia proved a dark horse - as second most ‘charming’ and third most romantic to the American ear.
The least attractive accents were topped by local regional bias against Brooklyn and Boston.
New York was the least attractive, followed by Boston, American Midwestern, Canadian, American Southern drawl, Spanish, German and English Yorkshire - Eh, by gum!
The Yorkshire drawl may not have been highly ranked for attraction, but it was found to be most ‘Sophisticated’.
The survey’s 1000 respondents were split evenly by gender with 52 per cent male, 48 per cent female, and an overlap of romantic orientations, with 47 looking to be seduced by female accents, 62 per cent male.
Ages were also broad with a 50 per cent majority of millennials, followed by 25 per cent Gen X, 15 per cent Baby Boomers and 10 per cent Gen Z.
There was a view that many of the results had been shaped by the cult of celebrity - with the Aussie accent being closely associated with on-screen hunks including Chris Hemsworth and Hugh Jackman. Margot Robbie was also a US heart-throb from the antipodes.
Jennifer Coolidge (seen here in TV series The White Lotus) says she saw 'a lot of sexual action' after starring in American Pie. Photo / AP
Polling respondents on on-screen accents, Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger was found to be hardest to understand, meanwhile the most ‘enjoyable accents’ were found to belong to Sean Connery, Liam Neeson and Jennifer Coolidge.
While exposing prejudices held by Americans, the study said it revealed that there were unfair advantages for some accents abroad - not just in the dating scene.
“These stereotypes can affect your career by impacting hiring decisions, especially when it comes to the accents others interpret as intelligent,” said the study.
However these associations can change over time - especially with new cultural associations.
In most cases they identify more about the listener than the speaker. Like whether they can tell one accent from another.
